From Diablo Wiki

Diablo III Boss Modifiers are special bonus properties that bosses and champions randomly spawn, or that they have preset by the developers. These grant the bosses elemental effects, shielding, extra speed, missile attacks, the ability to teleport or duplicate themselves, and many others.

Random boss monsters (Champions with Blue names and random bosses with Yellow names) spawn with one property on Normal, and add one on each of the difficulty levels, up to four on Inferno.

Elite monsters, Purple names, are special creatures with special preset modifiers and altered AI, and they do not gain random modifiers on higher difficulty levels, as most of them did in Diablo II. These Elites may gain additional modifiers on higher difficulty levels (for instance, The Warden gets Molten and Jailer past Normal difficulty), but not randomly; they are all preset by the game developers, and their added properties may differ slightly in function or lethality from what random bosses get.

This directory page gives brief descriptions of the properties; click to the individual articles for far more detail, including screenshots, movies, and strategy tips.

Higher Level Modifiers

Boss modifiers are introduced gradually as a character progresses through the game. The bosses found in the earliest portions of Act One can only spawn with one of three Modifiers: Nightmarish, Knockback, or Teleporter. This process evolved during the beta test, as nasty boss modifiers such as Arcane Enchanted, Molten, and Frozen were gradually removed/moved to higher monster levels.

The following Boss Modifiers can be found in Normal difficulty, where every random boss and champion pack will have one (and only one) of them.

Nightmare difficulty adds additional modifiers to the selection pool, and all random bosses and champion packs will have two modifiers semi-randomly selected. All of the Normal Difficulty Affixes are possible, with several new modifiers possible on Nightmare:

Hell difficulty adds additional modifiers to the selection pool, and all random bosses and champion packs will have three modifiers semi-randomly selected from the Normal, Nightmare, and the new Hell affixes:

There are no additional Boss Modifiers enabled in Inferno difficulty, though the fact that random bosses and Champions get 4 modifiers on that difficulty level can create combinations not seen previously.

Modifier Grouping

In July 2012 Blizzard revealed that boss modifiers were sorted into three groups, which limited which mods could spawn with each other on the same Elite. [1]

Why aren’t monster affix combinations restricted in some way?

Monster affixes are actually grouped into categories and then restricted based on those categories (to a degree). Our restrictions aren’t as tight as some players have suggested, but in the end we found that adding extra limitations often made Elite pack encounters very predictable and repetitive, which kind of went against our design goal for these types of monsters.

We know that not all players will see eye-to-eye with us on how these categories are organized, and we expect some criticism and disagreement, especially from such a passionate group of gamers. While we’re happy with where affix combos are right now, we’re open to feedback and especially constructive discussion. :)

This means that a given Elite can only have 1 (at most) of the Strong CC affixes, and 1 (at most) of the Defensive affixes. Thus an Elite on Inferno could have 1/1/2, 1/0/3, 0/1/3, or 0/0/4, respectively. These limits are meant to assist players by preventing an Elite from spawning with multiple overlapping functions, such as an Elite with Knockback + Nightmarish + Vortex that would constantly jerk and shove a character around, helplessly.

Only one modifier differs markedly when used by Champions or Bosses. The Waller Affix creates three sided boxes when used by a Boss, but only short, straight walls (which may overlap in dangerous T or + shapes) when cast by Champions.

Boss minions share some abilities with their Boss, but not all. For instance Bosses and minions can Knockback targets and generate Arcane Enchanted lasers, but only Bosses (and not minions) can cast Vortex, Jailer, or emit Mortar projectiles. These are noted in the "Available To" details below.

Boss and Champion Modifiers

This page is the master list of boss modifiers, arranged alphabetically. Each entry has a brief listing here; click to the individual pages for a fully detailed listing with screenshots and gameplay reports.

Arcane Enchanted

The original, highly-dangerous, Hydra style of this modifier.

Arcane Enchanted bosses are "enchanted" with Arcane energy. Rather than adding Arcane damage to their attacks, they cast Arcane objects that look like second hands off of a clock and rotate around, damaging any players or minions in their slowly-moving path. These are highly-damaging at higher difficulties, and are capable of almost instantly killing any character without strong Arcane Resistance. They are especially dangerous when paired with crowd control Affixes like Waller or Jailer.

Monster Level Minimum: 15

Available to: All

Damage Type: Arcane

Additional Resistances: None

Avenger

Avenger is a Champion-only modifier that links the champions, granting a temporary bonus in size, strength, and speed to the surviving champions whenever one is slain. The bonuses are most visible in the increased size of the enemy, and players may wish to use strategy and attempt to damage all of the monsters evenly, so that one or two won't still be nearly full health when the others die and they gain power ups.

Desecrator

Desecrators create an orange-colored "glowing void zone" beneath the feet of a character. These function like small Firewalls, dealing damage to any character who stands in them. The void zones take a second or so to come into effect, giving a visual warning so players have time to move, assuming they are not blocked in by modifiers like Waller or Jailer.

The Desecrated pools remain in place for 12 seconds, and during long battles with a boss and minions all casting Desecration, entire screens can be come virtually impassable due to the pits of damage.

Monster Level Minimum: 22

Available to: Champions, Bosses, and boss minions.

Damage Type: Physical

Additional Resistances: None

Electrified

Electrified enemies function much like a lightning-based form of Reflects Damage, dealing lightning damage back to attackers. This Affix was visually nerfed shortly after release, likely for frame rate/performance reasons. Prior to the visual nerf, monsters with Electrified sent out sparks in all directions when they were hit by ranged or melee attacks. Afterwards they still emit sparks, but in much smaller quantities.

The removal of the visual component effectively nerfed the danger of this modifier as well. Previously, the sparks could trigger other Boss Affixes, such as healing for Vampirific bosses.

Electrified boss putting out massive sparks.

Monster Level Minimum: 20

Available to: Champions and Bosses.

Damage Type: Lightning.

Additional Resistances: None.

Extra Health

Extra Health grants a 50% hit point bonus to Champions, as well as Bosses and their minions. This property is most dangerous as it extends fights, and players used to killing monsters quickly enough to avoid real trouble from their damaging properties such as Molten or Arcane Enchanted may need to retreat or take a different tactic when dealing with Extra Health enemies.

Monster Level Minimum: 31 (Nightmare and above.)

Available to: Champions, Bosses, and boss minions receive the benefit.

Fast

Fast monsters get a 40% bonus to their movement speed, as well as a 20% bonus to attack speed and a 10% bonus to casting speed. The modifier is especially dangerous for glass cannon type characters, who survive by running and staying out of reach of the monsters. Ironically, This ability can be most annoying when it spawns on wandering, shaman type enemies such as Fallen Shaman and Zombie Pukers, as they amble around in random directions and may move quite far during the course of a battle.

Rooting and slowing CC effects are essential against Fast enemies, as are movement skills.

Monster Level Minimum: 31

Available to: Champions, Bosses, and boss minions.

Damage Type: N/A.

Additional Resistances: None

Fire Chains

Fire Chains triangle between 3 desert wasp Champions.

Fire Chains are glowing, fiery chains that link champions in groups of 2 or 3, and deal heavy fire damage to any character that is touched by the chains. Four champions will only occasionally form a trapezoid, and usually link into a pair of straight lines, returning to a triangle when one of the four is killed.

Fire Chains have a maximum range of about 80 yards, and if one of the Champions moves too far from the others, the chain connecting them will wink out of existence, though it will return once the Champions move into closer proximity.

Patch v1.0.4 in August 2012 reduced the damage of the Fire Chains by 20%.[2] That patch also enabled Fire Chains for players, courtesy of some legendary items that summon a demon that is connected to the player by a Fire Chain that works to hurt monsters.

Monster Level Minimum: 31 (Nightmare and later)

Available to: Champions only.

Damage Type: Fire.

Additional Resistances: None

Frozen

Frozen spawns on Champions, Bosses, and Boss minions and causes those enemies to regularly create a scattered few blueish-white orbs that hang in space, growing rapidly in size before detonating in short range Frost Novas. These are damaging to any player, pet, or follower this hit and more dangerous still is their freezing effect, which leaves the frozen target helpless and motionless for a short duration.

While this property is not encountered until some distance through Normal difficulty, players get an early preview of it when they first encounter Captain Daltyn below Adria's Shack. Izual is another Elite with Frozen as an inherent property, and he creates a larger number of orbs spread over a larger area during his battle, as well as casting unavoidable Frost Novas.

Frozen initially left behind a core of ice at the monster's death, which exploded a moment later, much as Molten does. This property was tweaked during development and replaced by the much more dangerous spread of ice cores that we see in the released game.

Patch v1.0.4 in August 2012 reduced the damage Frozen deals to pets and followers to 10%.[3]

Monster Level Minimum: 20

Available to: All

Damage Type: Cold

Additional Resistances: None.

Health Link

Health Linked champions share a single common health pool, as if all 3 or 4 enemies had their life shared in the same bulb. This makes the individual champions seem very robust, since the damage they take is shared between the entire group, effectively tripling or quadrupling the hit points of any single monster. The effect has a fun side effect though, since when the shared health pool is emptied, all of the Champions will die in rapid succession, sometimes almost simultaneously.

Health Link has a maximum range, and if one of the Champions is more than a screen away from the others, it will lose health normally, without sharing with the others. This property is shown visually by splashes of blood that flash between the Champions as one takes damage and the others lose health to compensate.

During development this modifier was called Life Link and could be encountered on bosses and their minions, as well as champions.

Horde

Horde is a boss-only property that causes more minions to spawn at the start of the battle. The number of additional enemies increases with the difficulty level, with just a few extra on Normal, and up to 6 or 8 on Inferno. This property does not alter the boss' stats or behavior, and the minions aren't any different either; there are just more of them.

Horde is most dangerous when the monster type is dangerous, or when the other Boss Modifiers are nasty ones. Modifiers that minions can cast along with the boss, such as Frozen and Arcane Enchanted, become very numerous when paired with Horde. Reflects Damage and Electrified can be very dangerous as well, since a character may hit the boss and several minions at once, taking the RD from all of them simultaneously.

Horde can be confused with Illusionist, but Horde just creates more minions at the start of the fight. It does not allow the boss to make more during the battle, and all the Horde minions are full power and hit points, and their damage is very real.

Illusionist

A few zombies can result.

Illusionist Bosses and Champions are able to create duplicates of themselves during the battle, adding 4-6 more enemies in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, these duplicates are harmless; unable to deal any damage with their attacks and blessed with very few hit points. They work mostly as a distraction, since they are indistinguishable from the other monsters. This property is akin to the Wizard's Mirror Image skill, in that both create a lot of visual flash and action, but no real damage.

As Illusions have very minimal hit points they will die very quickly to any sort of AoE attack. They can also be spotted by their health bar display, as their total hit points will be a tenth (or less) of the Boss. Effects such as Fire Chains and Molten will not appear below the Illusions; only the real monsters.

The biggest danger from Illusionist is deception. Players can not tell which ones are real and which are fake, and may waste time attacking or running from harmless duplicates. The Illusions do take up space like real monsters though, and can physically block characters from escaping their midst. They are also annoying as ranged attackers, since though projectiles are harmless, they are identical in appearance to the "real" ones fired by the Boss or Champions.

Jailer

Jailer. This modifier grants the boss or champion the ability to briefly cage players and their minions. A reddish-orange circle appears around the targets, locking them into place for a short duration during which characters can fight and fire spells or projectiles, but can not move from their location. Jailer is most dangerous when used by monsters that deal high damage, or in conjunction with AoE boss modifiers like Arcane Enchanted, Plagued, or Desecrator.

Knockback

Knockback. This modifier grants the boss or champion a knockback attack which will send a character, pet or follower flying away from the monster that hits them. This is not a slight stumbling bump backwards, as many normal monsters can land; it's a special hit and knocks the target back a considerable distance, often half the screen or further (40+ yards). This can be quite funny early in the game, when a Witch Doctor watches his Mongrels get repeatedly launched across the entire screen by some tiny boss with this property. It can also be somewhat helpful to ranged attackers, as the boss will knock them so far back that it's almost as if they used some sort of movement skill themselves.

The real danger comes in the debuff, since knocked back characters and pets are confused, slowing their movement speed for a second after the impact. Characters can be knocked back into other dangerous effects such as Molten or Arcane and die while still badly slowed.

Missile Dampening

Missile Dampening.

Missile Dampening is a seldom-seen modifier that looks a bit like a Slow Time bubble around the boss (and only the boss). The bubble moves as the boss does, and functions much the same as the Slow Time Wizard skill. It reduces the speed of all incoming projectiles to a crawl, though it does not affect the movement speed of characters within the bubble.

The bubble protects the boss from projectile attacks, but not forever, as projectiles continue to move, albeit very slowly. This can set up some very cool visuals, as dozens of missiles can stack up at the edge of the bubble, seeming to float there, and then delivering tremendous damage when they finally move into range, or another monster walks into them. This is most impressive with projectiles that hit multiple times to anything in the vicinity (such as Lightning Ball) since they move so slowly while "dampened" that they can deal dozens of hits, rather than just two or three as normal.

Molten

Molten trail

Molten creates a trail of flame behind the feet of the monster, leaving a damaging trail of fire that takes several seconds to fade away. The most dangerous part of the Affix comes when the boss, minion, or champion dies, as a glowing fiery core is left behind. It expands for a few seconds before detonating, dealing huge damage to any character in the radius of effect.

Characters need to move away from the explosions, and this property can be very dangerous when matched with CC properties such as Vortex, Waller, or Jailer, or even just when lots of other monsters are in the way, blocking a character's escape.

Monster Level Minimum: 12

Available to: Champions, Bosses and their Minions.

Damage Type: Fire.

Additional Resistances: None.

Mortar

Mortar is a property that causes a constant stream of fiery projectiles to shoot out from the boss or champions, in all directions. The mortars do not land right beside the boss, creating a safe zone that allows melee characters to largely ignore the property, though when multiple champions are spewing our Mortars at once, much of the screen can be covered by their explosions.

Due to the visuals of the 3D engine, it's much easier to see and react to Mortars when they are fired from the sides or the top of the screen. Battling a Mortar that's below your character is a much greater challenge and should be repositioned if possible.

Patch v1.0.4 in August 2012 reduced the damage Mortar deals to pets and followers to 10%.[6]

Monster Level Minimum: 31

Available to: Bosses and Champions.

Damage Type: Fire.

Additional Resistances: N/A.

Nightmarish

When Nightmarish bosses hit a target with a melee or ranged attack, they have a chance to inflict an effect similar to that of the the Witch Doctor's Horrify skill. Characters or minions so affected will run for a second in a straight line (if possible) directly away from the champion, boss, or boss' minion that caused the effect. While running, players have no control over their character. If the running direction is blocked by a wall or other monsters, characters may simply stand still, a complete sitting duck to all enemy attacks.

Though this modifier is merely annoying in the early going, it can be one of the most dangerous on higher levels, since characters need to hit, move, cast spells, heal, etc, constantly. Not doing those for a second can be deadly, even aside from the problems with potentially running right into a stream of missiles or a hotspot from Arcane, Molten, Plagued, Desecrator or others.

Ranged attackers with Nightmarish inflict the effect much more often due to the higher volume of their projectiles.

The v1.0.4 patch nerfed this ability slightly, providing frightened targets with 6 seconds of immunity to being frightened again after each incidence. This prevents characters, pets, or minions from being feared and re-feared in rapid succession.[7]

Plagued

Plagued bosses create green pools of damage beneath their feet and in the immediate vicinity. These pools are not targeted at the player the way Desecrater is, but they are larger and can cover quite a bit of the screen during a long battle.

As well as dealing damage, the Plague pool inflicts a short term debuff that reduces the armor of Barbarians and Monks by 50%, and causes the Witch Doctor, Wizard, and Demon Hunter to take Reflected Damage.

Patch v1.0.4 in August 2012 reduced the damage Plagued deals to pets and followers to 10%.[8]

Monster Level Minimum: 20

Available to: All

Damage Type: Poison.

Additional Resistances: None.

Reflects Damage

Reflects Damage, is a higher level boss and champion modifier that causes players to take some damage for every point of damage they deal to enemies. Unlike Thorns, this damage hurts ranged attackers and even spell users. For instance, Wizards will drop hit points steadily as their Hydra pelts monsters with projectile attacks, even if the monster is so far away the Wizard can't even see it.

This effect is most dangerous to glass cannon type characters who do not have high regeneration or healing or life leech, as they will take steady damage even if they're not being hit by the enemy. It's less troublesome to most melee attackers, as they're built to absorb and leech and heal during combat, and the slight added damage from Reflects Damage isn't generally large enough to impact their play style.

Reflects Damage becomes more dangerous as a character increases in DPS, since the reflected damage is a percentage of the attack. While all characters require Life on Hit or Life Steal equipment to survive RD and Electrified enemies, characters with higher damage will generally require additional healing or damage mitigation skills to avoid beating themselves to death.

Monster Level Minimum: 31

Available to: Champions and bosses.

Damage Type: Physical.

Additional Resistances: N/A.

Shielding

Shielding is a modifier that creates a transparent bubble around a boss or champion, rendering them temporarily immune to all forms of damage. Shielded monsters can still be affected by some debuffs to their movement speed, but while shielded they are immune to most CC effects. The shields seem to appear and disappear at regular intervals, without a precisely set duration of on/off.

Only one Elite has shielding; Magda, though her shield is triggered by a timer on the fight itself, rather than a semi-random timer as with regular monsters.

Patch v1.0.4 nerfed the Shielding property in several ways, limiting it so it appears on only one monster out of the Champions or boss/minions at a time, and so it does not appear on the last monster remaining from such a group.

Teleporter

A Skeletal Summoner teleports into range.

Teleporter allows bosses, or individual champions, to teleport to a random location, generally appearing directly on top of a character they are battling. This gives the ability an interesting effect; many melee characters quite like it since it brings the enemy right to them, while ranged attackers, especially of the Glass Cannon variety, find it very dangerous.

Teleporter can create amusing situations with ranged attacking monsters, as they will Teleport into kissing-range, then walk away without attacking as they try to return to their preferred ranged distance.

Teleporter is similar to Vortex in effect, but is less dangerous since with Teleporter the monsters come to the hero, rather than dragging the hero into their midst, where Molten or Fire Chains or Arcane Enchanted or other such mods might be busy creating a killing ground.

Monster Level Minimum: 3

Available to: All

Damage Type: N/A.

Additional Resistances: None.

Vampiric

Vampiric is life leech in Diablo III, though the effect seems to boost damage as well, in addition to granting the monster some healing as it deals damage. The amount of healing is fairly minor, making this one of the less-difficult or noticeable boss modifiers.

It was much more impressive during development, when the affix provided almost full healing for monsters when they landed even a single hit on a target. Players found this modifier extremely difficulty to handle during play demos at Blizzcon, as it made some bosses almost impossible to kill, especially when they could hit minions such as Zombie Dogs and instantly refill their entire health bar. In the final game the healing is much reduced, and hardly ticks at all when the monsters hit minions, pets, or followers.

Vortex

Vortex causes characters to warp into close proximity to the champoion or boss (but not minion) with the Affix. This can be very dangeorus for ranged attackers who wish to stay away, especially when combined with other damaging Affixes such as Molten or Arcane Enchanted.

The Vortex triggers periodically, and is not based on a % chance from the monster landing hits. There seems to be a maximum distance outside of which it will not work; character who remain off the screen are very seldom Vortexed in, and it's a pull, not a warp, so geographical features such as walls and other obstacles might stop the pull before a character is yanked right next to the enemy.

As with Teleporter, this is not a mod that melee characters find very dangerous, and it can actually work against the AI of some ranged attacker bosses, who will stop attacking and attempt to retreat when the Vortex triggers and they suddenly find a character in close proximity.

Waller

Waller affix on a Goatman in zoomed view.

Waller grants monsters the ability to raise stone walls that block player movement for a second or two, before crumbling back into nothing. Walls limit player movement (though some skills such as Leap and Teleport can move over them), as well as blocking most player projectiles. Most melee attacks will work right past walls, providing the target is directly on the other side and within reach.

Monsters are generally blocked from moving or firing over the walls as well, and wallers in levels with narrow corridors can create amusing sequences of perpetually blocked access, where neither the monsters or the characters can get to each other to fight.

Champions can only create short, straight walls, while Bosses create larger, three-sided rectangles that box fleeing players in, forcing them to run back past the boss and other monsters to escape. While the Champion walls are shorter and appear in straight lines, all of the Champions can cast them and such walls may overlap, creating maze-like shapes or working with walls or other obstacles to completely block players.

Though Waller does no damage on its own, it is one of the most dangerous modifiers when paired with big damage AoE properties such as Molten, Frozen, Arcane Enchanted, Plagued, Desecrator, and others. Those effects can appear past walls, or hit right over them, nailing characters who are trapped by the walls.

Monster Level Minimum: 10

Available to: Champions and Bosses, but not boss minions.

Damage Type: N/A.

Additional Resistances: None.

Removed Boss Properties

This section lists modifiers that were seen during development or testing, but that are not included in the final game. Many other properties changed greatly during development; see the individual modifier articles for more details on those.

Ballista

Ballista was a new property seen in the Blizzcon 2010 demo on some ranged attackers such as Skeletal Archers. This modifier appeared to increase the size and damage of their projectiles, but the damage wasn't noticeably bigger, and the shots didn't explode upon impact, as Warcraft 2 fans might have expected, given the utility of the human catapult, the Ballista, in that title. It was removed prior to beta testing.

Cold Aura

Cold Aura reported by a fan from the Blizzcon 2009 demo. It was never seen afterwards, and is considered unconfirmed. It reputedly worked just as it did in Diablo 2, chilling and slowing players within the radius of effect. Interestingly, it was not until after that year's Blizzcon that Jay Wilson let it be known that Auras would return to the game, most likely as Monk skills.

Monster Level Minimum: ?

Available to: Bosses only.

Damage Type: Cold

Additional Resistances: Cold

Die Together

Die Together was a Champion-only modifier removed from the game during development. Its removal was announced in the Beta v6 patch notes in November 2011, and further explained by Blizzard afterwards. The modifier linked the lives of each Champion in the pack, enabling any dead monsters to resurrect (with limited hit points) approximately 10 seconds after death so long as any of the other Champions remained alive.

The theory was to force players to manage the battle, and to whittle all of the Champions down to nearly dead, before trying to kill them all in rapid succession. In practice it was just annoying -- characters with AoE attacks had a considerable advantage over melee attackers and furthermore, some monsters (such as Skeletal Summoners) tended to move apart, making it nearly impossible to kill all of them in the allotted time.

Doppelganger

Doppleganger was the original name of the modifier now called Illusionist. See that entry for full details.

Invulnerable Minions

Invulnerable Minion pack.

Invulnerable Minions was removed from the game in patch v1.0.4, in August 2012.[10] The information below is archived from when the feature was existent.

A boss with the Invulnerable Minions trait can be exceedingly dangerous and downright annoying, as the minions are completely invulnerable to all forms of attack. They never drop their shields (unlike Shielding bosses) and can not be damaged by any attack, though they are susceptible to various CC attacks and can be slowed, chained, frightened, frozen, etc. They only way to kill them is to kill the boss (who is not invulnerable or shielded), at which point all of the minions die at once.

Invulnerable Minions are dangerous as they can hit and damage without being killed, and are very hard for character builds that rely on hits for healing, procs, or other effects. These minions are also very good at getting in the way and tanking for their bosses, as they block ranged attacks from hitting their vulnerable leader. Skills that pierce or deal AoE are useful to bypass this shielding annoyance.

Magical

Magical. This modifier was seen several times during Blizzcon 2009 play testing, but its effect wasn't apparent to any of the players.

Multishot

Multishot was seen in Blizzcon demos, and referred to by Bashiok in 2010[11], but it was never seen in the Beta and is not present in the final game. There are fairly few ranged attackers in Diablo III, and this might explain why Ballista and Multishot were both removed during development.

Multishot was watched with much more anticipation than other mods due to its legendary status in Diablo II, where prior to v1.10 fixing the bug that caused numerous extra bolts to be released, MSLE (Multi-Shot Lightning-Enchanted) bosses were virtually instant death to any character without huge hit points, lightning resistance, and lightning absorption.

Given that history, fans were curious how MS might interact with mods like Mortar or Electrified in Diablo III.

Mythical

Mythical was seen several times during Blizzcon 2009 play testing, but its effect wasn't apparent to any of the players, and they are not seen in the final game.

Powerful

Powerful was seen in the Blizzcon 2010 demo, but not understood completely. It sounded akin to the "Extra Strong" mod from Diablo 2, which granted bonus damage to monsters, but that wasn't clear from the play testing.

Stoneskin

Stoneskin, which granted a considerable boost to physical resistance in Diablo II, was present during Diablo 3's development and was seen in demos, but it is not present in the final game. Likely this was removed when elemental damage types were flattened, as having a specific resistance to one type of damage seemed pointless with fire, cold, lightning, poison, and physical all working exactly the same. (Only cold varies slightly in the final game, trading a bit less damage for an added chill/slow effect.)